Thursday, April 1, 2010

Ride, interrupted

I left the office, and turned onto my normal path home, only to find it barricaded after a couple of blocks.
I became a pedestrian and started weaving my way through a rapidly thickening crowd. About half way along the closed section of road, I realized that it was closed for a presidential motorcade!
I stopped for a couple of minutes, watching a woman in a jacket emblazoned "U.S. Postal Service Police" opening up mailboxes (presumably checking them for bombs). A K9 unit went past, tails and ears up.
The motorcade arrived, but all I saw of it were flashing lights at a distance as it headed into a garage. Sorry, pictures didn't come out.

The rest of the ride home was mostly uneventful. The only exception was when I pulled up at a red light in the bike lane next to an SUV whose driver suddenly decided she wanted to be going the other way. Rather than proceeding through the intersection and finding a place to turn around, she decided to do a U turn right there at the intersection. She backed up,a bit started to turn into the opposite lane, started to back up (into me!) at this point I yelled, and she looked behind her (at me) surprised that anyone would be there! I scooted out of harm's way and she finished her (very awkward) maneuver. The woman waiting to turn in and I exchanged eyerolls and shrugs.

When I got home, I had a bit of time, so I made Mole' for dinner. One of the things I miss about Salt Lake City was this fantastic place called the Red Iguana that had something like 6 or 7 moles every night- fantastic. You could get a little sampler plate with chips to test them all out and pick your favorite.

Most moles take hours and a list of 20+ ingredients. This one, from Rick Bayless, can be made on a Thursday night (if you have the right ingredients- which I happened to-dried chiles keep for a good long time).

Slice 4 plum tomatoes in half, and put them under the broiler until blackened (about 10 min for my lousy broiler). Start a skilled heating over low heat and (optional) let the dog out and change into jeans.

Tear up 2 dried ancho chiles, and toast them in a dry skillet, pressing them down while they warm until they get a bit lighter red in color (5-10 min) and you can smell them- better to undercook them than t let them burn. Put the chiles in a bowl with water to cover, and stick them in the microwave for a minute to help them soften (or soak for 30 min).

Slice a half an onion, and chunk 2 cloves of garlic. Cook over low heat in a bit of oil until translucent.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine, onions and garlic, roasted tomatoes, 1 cup peanuts, the ancho chiles (but not the soaking water) 2 slices bread, torn in chunks, 2 chipolte chiles in adobo (from a can) 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 cup chicken broth. Process into a paste, scraping down the sides as needed.

Heat 3 tsp oil in a saucepan until it shimmers, then turn all the chile paste into it. This is a step unique to moles (although I've seen similar steps in some indian food) but you want to "fry the paste" until it starts to turn a darker red around the edges, stirring with a spatula for 3-5 minutes.

Add 3 cups chicken broth, 1/2 cup red wine, 1 tbs apple cider vinegar and 1 tsp salt.
Stir until it's well combined, and let it simmer for about 20 min.
At this point, the Scientist was on his way home, so I divided the sauce (about the thickness of gravy) in half, put half of it in the pressure cooker, added chicken thighs, and cooked for about 5 minutes once it got to pressure . The rest will go straight into the freezer for a later meal. Serve with tortillas and chips (also good over brown rice). YUM!

3 comments:

Steve, what do you yell?I used to favor Oi!, but lately I've been going with Hey Hey Hey (shades of fat Albert?) i want it to be something that doesn't sound like a swear word in any way, but is percussive enough to carry!

i used to yell expletives unmentionable here, but i had to remodel my shout vocabulary once i started riding my kids around. the change has stuck, and now i usually just shout "hey!". if i'm alone and the offense in question is particularly egregious and the offender appears to be a dufus, i revert to judicious use of expletives. most of them are reserved for cabbies.